Daily Advertiser, Dec. 29, 2011 

HONOLULU — Newly hired Southern Miss offensive coordinator Rickey Bustle watched the Golden Eagles’ 24-17 win over Nevada closely on TV during Saturday night’s Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.

The former UL head coach wanted to see what talent he will have to work with next season.

"I’ll kind of put a blinder on for (quarterback Austin Davis)," Bustle said.

Davis won’t be available in 2012, but Bustle has been told he’ll have plenty of talent in the backfield.

Bustle said Saturday during a phone interview he plans to implement an offensive system that’s not much different than the one outgoing coach

Larry Fedora has used over the last four years, breaking most of USM’s offensive records.

"We want to put an up-tempo offense on the field and change speeds, keep it spread out, and sometimes not," Bustle said. "We want to keep people guessing. We’re all coming from different backgrounds a little bit. There’s more than one way to run what they call a spread offense. We really want to sit down and look at a lot of film and look at what they’re best at. We’ll start at square one. We’ll carry over some things. We’ll add some things. It will be a building process this spring."

Bustle spent the 2011 season as the quarterbacks coach at Tulane after serving nine years as the UL coach.

Bustle had two stints as offensive coordinator at Virginia Tech, running the Hokies’ offense in 1993 and 1995-2001.

He also served as offensive coordinator at South Carolina in 1994 and UL Monroe in 1986.

Bustle said he has plenty of respect for USM football and new coach Ellis Johnson, and those are the main reasons he accepted the job to come to Hattiesburg.

"First of all, I know Ellis and I know what kind of coach and person he is," Bustle said. "I’ve known him and I’m also from the South Carolina area. We coached against each other and I’ve always had the greatest respect for Ellis and what he’s done. I think the people he’s also talking about hiring will be great additions to the staff."

Outgoing USM offensive coordinator Blake Anderson served on Bustle’s staff at UL in 2007.

Bustle said he plans on picking Anderson’s brain on what to expect from the returning players at Southern Miss.